Pinephone: Cellular network not available (fresh install)

[qmastery16]

Hi there, I'm a new user of Maemo Leste (running away from SystemD of PostmarketOS 😉 )
Just did a fresh install to Pinephone, however I see a crossed-out SIM card sign at the top menu bar
and when I go to Settings -> Connectivity and try to click "Phone", I see the following message:

Cellular network not available

However, your wiki pages claim that the cellular-related functions are working fine on the Pinephone.
Please tell, what I need to do to enable the cellular network?

[MerlijnWajer]

Does the SIM card work on other systems, or are you sure that it is seated correctly?

[sicelo]

Hi. The project has migrated to https://git.maemo.org/ , so at least for future issues, it is best to use https://git.maemo.org/leste/bugtracker/issues

running away from SystemD of PostmarketOS

We have mutual respect for, and collaborate with other Linux-on-Mobile projects, including postmarketOS. To the best of our knowledge, you can still use postmarketOS without systemd

[qmastery16]

@MerlijnWajer Yes, a SIM card worked on the PostmarketOS; if that matters, I have alternative opensource Modem firmware installed. What debug info do I need to debug this issue? (AT commands, ofono logs, etc - I can provide everything; hopefully there's no regression upstream)

[qmastery16]

@MerlijnWajer re-seating the SIM card just in case didn't help; one weird thing I noticed: in lsusb my EG25-G modem is visible as EC25

[sicelo]

install ofono-scripts and share the output of

/usr/share/ofono/scripts/list-modems

[qmastery16]

@sicelo , it outputs the following:

[ /quectelqmi_0 ]
Online = 0
Powered = 0
Lockdown = 0
Emergency = 0
SystemPath = /sys/devices/platform/soc/1c1b000.usb/usb2/2-1
Interfaces =
Features =
Type = hardware
Capabilities = dbus.Array([dbus.String('lte')], signature=dbus.Signature('s'), variant_level=1)

Assuming that 0 means OFF, its a bit strange that it shows Powered = 0 - I didn't touch any hardware switches on Pinephone's mainboard. Maybe there's some power-saving feature gone wrong and disabled my modem?

[sicelo]

Yes, it's powered off.

If the hardware switches are in the on position, kindly confirm:

1. That sudo rc-service cellulard status reports status: started
2. let us know what happens after:

/usr/share/ofono/scripts/enable-modem
/usr/share/ofono/scripts/online-modem

[qmastery16]

@sicelo ,

1. Yes, cellulard is started
2. Trying to run sudo /usr/share/ofono/scripts/enable-modem gives:

Connecting modem /quectelqmi_0...
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/usr/share/ofono/scripts/enable-modem", line 20, in <module>
  modem.SetProperty("Powered", dbus.Boolean(1), timeout = 120)
File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/dbus/proxies.py", line 72, in __call__
  return self._proxy_method(*args, **keywords)
         ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/dbus/proxies.py", line 141, in __call__
return self._connection.call_blocking(self._named_service,
         ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/dbus/connection.py", line 634, in call_blocking
  reply_message = self.send_message_with_reply_and_block(
                  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
dbus.exceptions.DBusException: org.ofono.Error.Failed: Operation failed

Then, sudo /usr/share/ofono/scripts/online-modem gives a very similar output but org.ofono.Error.NotAvailable: Operation currently not available

[MerlijnWajer]

I don't have the custom modem firmware installed, I wonder if that could be an issue.

[qmastery16]

@MerlijnWajer Is there any way to get more logs? I'd have thought that it's indeed disabled, however this modem is available as a USB device

[sicelo]

what ofono version are you running by the way?

dpkg -l ofono

[qmastery16]

@sicelo it is 1:2.17.0-1+4m7 for arm64; most likely its the latest version since I used a fresh 20250629-daedalus IMG and also ran sudo apt upgrade just in case

[sicelo]

alright, i'm out of ideas, but one last try from me:

busctl call org.ofono /quectelqmi_0 org.ofono.Modem SetProperty sv Powered b true

followed by:

busctl call org.ofono /quectelqmi_0 org.ofono.Modem SetProperty sv Online b true

BTW: you did not tell us if cellulard is running

[qmastery16]

@sicelo , Thank you for trying to help, these two commands did not output any error but do not seem to do anything either: a SIM sign is still crossed-out and enable-modem gives the same "NotAvailable" error. cellulard is running. I will need to use this phone soon but will keep Maemo installed into EMMC for a while - so if you'll get more ideas, I am ready to try anything

Meanwhile, maybe I'll try some AT commands to see if anything could help from this side (I am not familiar with Maemo's internals so it's the only thing I can do)

P.S. for some reason I can't find any Up/Down/Left/Right arrows on the virtual keyboard, so editing the text files is much more complicated. also, both firefox-esr + firefox-esr-mobile+config and librewolf web browsers that I have installed - do not show a virtual keyboard when I try to click URL bar, so I can't visit any websites other than what's shown as "recommended"

[qmastery16]

@sicelo @MerlijnWajer I temporarily switched to the latest no-SystemD Phosh version of PostmarketOS (latest build of 24.12) without touching any phone's internals, and the same Quectel EG25-G modem is working absolutely fine there. So its probably some software incompatibility on Maemo Leste's side, which you can hopefully reproduce by trying the latest IMG of Maemo Leste. Regarding my modem's firmware versions (if that matters), I have the latest 0.8.0 opensource firmware installed after the proprietary EG25GGBR07A08M2G_30.007.30.007 firmware (that has been clean-installed by EDL method), so my flashed ADSP version is 30.007.30.007.